The Mourning Bells

by Christine Trent

  “What’s this, the third one in this shipment?” Violet said, making a special note in the ledger and setting the piece aside. Harry continued digging through the crate, now unwrapping earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, hair combs, hairpins, and fans fashioned from jet, a material that was popular with anyone who could afford it.

  Jet was a hard, coal-like material formed when driftwood sank to the ocean floor and became embedded in the mud. A combination of heat, pressure, and chemical action that Violet didn’t understand transformed the wood into a fragile, black substance that was lightweight and easily carved. It could be obtained all over the world from places like Spain, Germany, Canada, France, and the United States, but Morgan Undertaking only purchased jet from suppliers who bought it from Whitby, England, where the finest jet in the world was to be found.

  The wearing of jet was de rigueur for all ladies who wanted to be funeral fashionable, although the lower classes satisfied themselves with less expensive, glass versions of the valued substance.

  Not unexpectedly, several of the delicate jet pieces were broken, as well. A glass-topped brooch or ring made of gold could have its dome replaced; crumbled jet was useless.

  All of the broken jet was set aside with the damaged glass pieces as Violet continued her note taking. “It seems we will no longer wish to use T. & J. Bragg, would you agree?” she asked her partner as he unwrapped the last item, a mourning tear vial that was thankfully unbroken.

  “Agreed. I’ll take care of preparing a return box. If they cannot prepare their shipments properly to avoid breakage for the trip from Birmingham, they shouldn’t be in business.” Harry scooped the damaged pieces onto a tray and disappeared into the back room, presumably to get them ready for a return shipment.

  Violet took the ledger with her as she went to retrieve writing paper. Standing behind the counter, she penned a letter to T. & J. Bragg, detailing all of the smashed jewelry and stating Morgan Undertaking’s intention not to purchase from them anymore. She made a mental note that she would need to pick up a bank draft later to cover the pieces she was keeping. The jeweler would undoubtedly be dismayed, and possibly angry, that Violet was dropping them for sloppy practices. She added that she planned to transfer her business to Asprey & Co., which possessed a royal warrant from Queen Victoria.

  As she scrawled out the letter, her mind drifted to what Harry had said, about the fact that if T. & J. Bragg couldn’t prepare shipments properly, they shouldn’t be in business. Wasn’t that what she had said about Mr. Vernon? She’d spent so much time being uncertain as to whether crimes were being committed that she had forgotten that very important fact: If Mr. Vernon was not a proper undertaker, he shouldn’t be in business, regardless of whether there was anything for Scotland Yard to be involved in.

  She shook her head. It was none of her concern, and she would just be accused of being a busybody to bring it up again.

  Yet it kept coming back to her as she finished her letter, rolled the blotter over the wet ink, and folded it carefully. If James Vernon were of a mind to throw Violet into a coffin—even if he supposedly did so unaware of his actions—might he not have done so to other people? Could they possibly have been made unconscious first so that they did not awaken until they were at Brookwood?

  But for what reason? What had the others done to anger or frighten Vernon?

  She contemplated this idea seriously as she addressed the envelope to the jewelers. Another thought popped into her mind. Had Julian Crugg also become suspicious of Vernon and suffered more harshly than Violet? After all, he, too, had ended up in a coffin . . . permanently. Had Violet just been lucky that day in Vernon’s shop? Or perhaps he was willing to simply warn her because he found murdering a woman to be a little too distasteful.

  She dug threepence out of a drawer and dropped it on top of the letter to hand to the postman later.

  If Vernon was responsible for the bungled undertaking jobs, it explained the first two bodies who popped up from their coffins. Crugg’s possible knowledge of his colleague’s practices explained his own death, too. Moreover, it might even explain Roger Blount’s condition, if Vernon was his undertaker.

  Perhaps she should visit him once more, despite the danger of being locked in a coffin. She would need to take along some protection. Violet wondered if she should wait for Sam to return from his club meeting with Mr. Hayes, but Harry’s brawn should suffice. Besides, who knew when Sam would be home? He’d spent so much time in the company of bankers that, even though they were hesitant to finance Sam’s venture, they’d grown fond of his American mannerisms and speech. They’d invited him again and again to smoke cigars and drink whatever vile liquor was being poured at Arthur’s, a gentlemen’s club actually founded inside a bank several decades ago.

  “Harry?” she called out. He emerged from the back room with a wrapped package. “I’d like you to run an errand with me.”

  “Sure,” he said, depositing the package next to her letter. Dear Harry, he didn’t even question what it was. A final thought popped into her mind, and she stopped to write out a telegram message that would help answer an important question that still remained.

  With Harry in tow, Violet locked the shop, and they stopped first to send her telegram. The mail could wait for the letter carrier on one of his twice-daily visits tomorrow.

  Mr. Vernon was none too happy to see either Violet or Harry arrive, but his poisonous greeting rolled sweetly on his tongue, like clotted cream on a scone.

  “Are you my Moses, Mrs. Harper, come to deliver a plague? What shall it be this time? Locusts? Frogs? The death of all the firstborn in London?” His voice quavered at the end, suggesting that his sarcasm was like waves attempting to cover the jagged rocks of fear.

  Violet offered a tight smile, ignoring Harry’s expression of bewilderment. “I won’t occupy too much of your time, sir. I am just following up from a visit Inspector Hurst made to you recently.”

  “Who?”

  Was Vernon’s confused look another ploy?

  “Detective Chief Inspector Hurst of Scotland Yard. He visited with his fellow detective Second Class Inspector Pratt.”

  “I’ve heard of no such men, nor have I been visited by Scotland Yard.”

  Violet was beginning to believe him. The thought that Hurst had so boldly lied to her about interviewing Vernon, with Pratt nodding his head in agreement, caused her blood to simmer in her veins. She had to stop thinking about it, lest she erupt in outrage. He had sworn he would pay a visit to James Vernon and hadn’t, which meant he was probably doing nothing about Julian Crugg. Was he even seeing to the family’s collection of the man’s body?

  “I see that I am mistaken in my understanding. My apologies, sir.” She had planned to imply she was there on Hurst’s behalf in order to scare a confession from him, but how could that possibly work now? An idea flashed through her mind, and she turned as though to leave, then turned back again, as though something had just occurred to her.

  “One thing, though, before I leave. I wrote to Uriah Gedding.” Violet watched Vernon’s expression, but it was bland. “He assured me that you were the undertaker for Roger Blount.” Violet didn’t know this but anticipated Uriah Gedding confirming it for her soon enough.

  “Who?” Vernon said again, this time blinking slowly like an owl.

  “Lord Roger Blount, second son to the Earl of Etchingham, who died very suddenly about two weeks ago and was sent to Brookwood for burial.”

  “Once again, dear lady, I have no idea what you are talking about.” He turned to Harry, whom Violet had not even introduced yet. “Are you her husband?”

  Harry tapped his undertaker’s hat. “Her partner.”

  Bless Harry, he was completely baffled by what Violet was doing but pretended to be fully aware of it.

  Vernon, apparently dismissing Harry as no threat, turned back to Violet. “I don’t know this Lord Blount, although his name is familiar. I’m sure I’ve read of him in the papers. I also don’t
know these inspectors you mentioned, and I especially don’t know why you’re here again.”

  Violet continued. “The LNR keeps records of the bodies shipped to Brookwood, and you are the undertaker of record for Lord Blount. The condition of his body matched your particular . . . style . . . of undertaking.”

  “Which is to say what, exactly, madam?”

  “That he was nearly untouched. His eyes were not fixed shut. His mouth gaped open. His hands were not folded and secured together. And not a single ounce of cosmetic massage had been applied to his skin. That is your method, isn’t it? To charge customers for practically nothing?” Violet heard Harry’s intake of breath next to her.

  “How dare you accuse me of cheating families through slipshod work?” Vernon sputtered angrily. “I have been undertaking for twenty-three years, and my father had this shop before that, and my grandfather before him.” His eyes were back to blinking rapidly in that bizarre way of his.

  That was most likely true. Undertaking was a skill usually passed from father to son, and each family maintained its own secret techniques for preparing bodies. The Vernon men, though, did have some rather imperfect methods.

  Still, James Vernon claimed no knowledge of Roger Blount’s body. Violet tried again.

  “I would like to see Lord Blount’s record,” she said, something she had no right to ask.

  “I tell you, Mrs. Harper, I have no record for Blount because I never handled the body.”

  Hmm. She had expected his guilty defense to be that he was under no obligation to share his private funeral records with her. Instead, he had maintained his ignorance of Blount.

  It didn’t prove anything, of course, but it made her waver a little bit. He was a dreadful undertaker, for certain, but maybe he wasn’t the criminal she had suspected him of being. Or else he was much cleverer than she had thought.

  She tried one more tactic. “You do realize that Scotland Yard will be most unhappy to discover you were Lord Blount’s undertaker and that you lied about it?”

  Vernon pinched his vest hems on either side with his forefingers and thumbs and attempted a smile, which turned into more of a leer, and Violet didn’t like the chill it sent up her spine. “My dear Mrs. Harper, Scotland Yard apparently doesn’t give a whit for me and what I do. It would be wise if you didn’t, either.”

  10

  After a tense cab ride, during which Violet told Harry as little as possible to satisfy his curiosity, they arrived back at Morgan Undertaking. Violet had hardly removed her hat and placed it on a wall peg when a boy in uniform from the telegraph office arrived. She dropped a penny in his hand and took the telegram. How remarkable machinery was becoming, that she could send a missive all the way to Surrey and have a response within a couple of hours.

  She read the telegram from Brookwood South’s stationmaster.

  SUBJECT, ROGER BURTON BLOUNT, DATE OF DEATH

  AUGUST THE 16TH, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1869,

  SERVED IN DEATH BY JULIAN CRUGG OF LONDON.

  RESPECTFULLY, URIAH GEDDING.

  Violet was stunned. Was Gedding certain? How could this be? She had been completely sure of her theory this morning of Vernon’s guilt in not caring for Lord Blount properly. The condition of Blount’s body pointed to Vernon, not Crugg.

  But first Vernon’s manner of denial and now Gedding’s telegram threw her entire supposition into the wind.

  She dwelt on it for the rest of the day, even as she met with a family to discuss the burial of their parlor maid, whose own family could not afford any sort of funeral. With her undertaking book held open to the Working Class section as she described by rote an appropriate funeral for the maid, Violet’s mind drifted off to her situation.

  Everything thus far that she had assumed or determined to be right had proved to be completely wrong. Violet could have sworn that Roger Blount had been undertaken by James Vernon, but instead he had been treated by her old nemesis, Julian Crugg. Was it a coincidence that Crugg was also now dead? Had someone murdered both Blount and Crugg, or was that a fanciful imagining on Violet’s part? What reason would someone have to murder the second son of an earl in addition to his undertaker? It was preposterous.

  Unless Julian Crugg knew something about Blount’s death? In fact, was there something about Lord Blount’s death that had frightened Crugg and thus made him imprecise and clumsy in dealing with Blount’s body?

  As she left her customer’s home and returned to the shop via omnibus, Violet warmed to this idea. Now that Gedding had confirmed Crugg was Blount’s undertaker, it made much more sense that Margery Latham had clung so desperately to the undertaker at Brookwood. Was there something that both had known about Blount’s death?

  Which reminded Violet that Miss Latham, too, was now dead. Was someone running about murdering everyone connected with Roger Blount? What in the world was so significant about the young man that he was causing someone so much terrible angst? That would cause Crugg to lie to Violet about knowing Lord Blount and his fiancée?

  Perhaps there was something inside Crugg’s shop that she’d overlooked. She would return there tomorrow morning and take another look.

  If Violet had known what was waiting for her, however, she would have avoided it like a burial in a thunderstorm.

  The door to Crugg’s shop stood ajar, and several people dressed in mourning were milling inside. Half-filled crates lay around the room, and the shop’s display cases were almost completely empty. She knocked on the door with her gloved hand, pushed it farther open, and stepped inside. All activity ceased as five pairs of eyes—three male and two female—fixated their gazes upon her.

  “Pardon me,” Violet said. “I am here to . . . I was just . . .” She cleared her throat as she walked farther into the room. “You must be Mr. Crugg’s family.”

  A pinched-looking man whose dour face meant he could be no one other than Crugg’s brother said, “Yes, are you one of Mr. Trumpington’s family members? He’s gone, off to start his own shop somewhere else in the city.”

  “My name is Violet Harper. I am a fellow undertaker of Mr. Crugg’s. I stopped by to, er, pay my respects and to hopefully pick up his shop ledger to—”

  “You!” breathed one of the women in accusation. She was an elderly crone whose confection of black feathers, crape, and dangling jet beads wound around her head did little to detract from her beaked nose, through which her next words were emitted like a series of goose honks.

  “How DARE you? What DO you think you mean coming here? After what you DID to my nephew?” The woman’s hat feathers shook violently. Violet expected her to start flapping at any moment.

  “Again, pardon me, madam, I can see that you must all be his family members, and as such I extend my deepest condolences. I shan’t keep you. I merely wanted to see—”

  The dour-faced man cut Violet off. “You’re the crow who ruined my brother’s business.”

  Violet was used to being called a crow, but by another undertaker’s relatives . . . ?

  “I assure you, sir, that I—”

  Another man stepped forward to proffer an opinion, and Violet didn’t like how Crugg’s family was beginning to circle her.

  “You not only ruined his business, you accused him of the most . . . most . . . vile actions imaginable.” The man was much younger than Crugg, with fleshy cheeks that puffed out further as he practically spat his words out at Violet.

  It was almost as though Julian Crugg was somehow reaching from the grave to torment her. She instinctively took a step back toward the door.

  The other woman in the room was thin and choleric. Crugg must have had two siblings. The strands of jet draped around her neck looked like an anchor weighing her down. “How ironic that you’ve had the nerve to show up here. We were talking about you earlier. My brother here, Malcolm, wants to take you to court. I told him it would be much simpler to push you into the Thames. It would be kinder, too, than what you did to Julian, putting him into his grave.”

/>   Violet held up a hand. “Madam, you are greatly mistaken. I found your brother’s body, but I had no hand in his death.”

  “Hah!” said Hat Feathers. “The police tried to tell us he committed suicide. But we know you killed him as surely as if you plunged a knife into his heart yourself. Julian had been complaining of you for months, about how you snatched profitable business from him and then stalked him, accusing him of all manner of wrongdoing. You’re shameful.”

  “You are misinformed of my dealings with your nephew, madam. I have never intentionally taken customers from any other undertaker. The situation for which Mr. Crugg blamed me was unfortunate, but it was the queen’s decision that I handle the body in question. As for stalking him, I simply became concerned over the . . . mishandling of some bodies, and I—”

  “Yes, we know,” Hat Feathers said, holding up a hand to stop her. “Your haranguing and pestering made the dear boy nearly ill with worry. He could hardly sleep at night.”

  Violet bit her lip. If Julian Crugg was so disturbed that he wasn’t resting, it likely had nothing to do with her. About what, then, was he so distressed? Was this more evidence that Violet was correct in thinking that Crugg knew something about Roger Blount’s death, something that ended up getting the undertaker killed?

  Should she share her suspicions with his family? As Violet looked at the murderous stares they were all giving her, making her skin prickly and hot, she thought maybe not. She offered one more defense.

  “I assure you all, any harm Mr. Crugg may have believed I caused him was purely unintentional. I was just—”

  “You were just devious.” Hat Feathers stepped forward, her hand still raised but now positioned as if she wanted to choke Violet. “You were just devious, and sly, and knavish.” With each word she took a step closer to Violet. To Violet’s dismay, the woman’s relatives were also moving forward, grinning. They looked like leering corpses who had risen from the dead and were looking for another victim to take back to Hades with them.